Page 88 of A Daring Pursuit

Chapter Thirty-One

Noah rubbed hishands over Geneva’s cold arms despite the blazing fire in the library’s hearth. “I have something for you,” he said.

Her arms wrapped around his waist, her head lay on his shoulder. “I don’t need a thing. I have you.”

“I never found your locket, but I have something else I hope will suffice.”

A startled laugh erupted from her. Then she started to giggle. Uncontrollably.

Noah shook her. “What the devil?”

Tears were filling her eyes.

Panic roared through him. “I tried, darling. Truly, I searched my father’s chamber, but there was nothing there. I checked the trunks in the attic Winfield’s had packed away. The safe only Father used. I’m so sorry, love. I couldn’t find it. I was even going to rifle through Julius’s private belongings. I’d given it to him when he was just a lad. As a keepsake from… his mother. But it was kept in the safe.”

Still, she laughed until he realized she couldn’t stop.

He crashed his mouth over hers. A move that sobered her in an instant. He licked her lips. They parted and he stroked his tongue against hers, one that felt of crushed velvet. The texture drove him wild, along with her response that drove every coherent thought from his head. Slowly, he pulled away and studied her. He tugged a handkerchief from his pocket andgently dabbed the tears from her face. “What was that, love? I don’t understand.”

“The locket. I found the locket,” she choked out, taking the handkerchief from him.

“What? Where?”

“What is this about my locket?” Isabelle strolled in, Julius on her heels, startling him.

His brother’s eyes narrowed. “More importantly, why would you rummage through my personal belongings?”

“Don’t be angry with Noah,” Geneva chastised him. “I came to Northumberland to find a ruby locket my mother had promised me when I was just a little girl. For the longest time, I’d thought I had dreamed it, but then Abra and I found a box under a plank in the floor of my flat. There was a letter she was writing to Lord Pender, er, the late earl—”

“Go on,” Julius said.

Noah intervened. “I offered to help her find it. But it had disappeared from the safe.”

A sheepish expression crept over Julius’s face. “I, um, gave it to Isabelle, but I told her never to tell you. I thought it would hurt your feelings if you knew. It wasn’t as if I could ever wear it.”

Relief hit Noah in the chest.

Julius’s eyes took on a distant gaze. “Sometimes I would see you take it from the safe and watch you studying it. You looked so… so troubled.”

Noah led Geneva to the seating before the fire and dropped next to her. Isabelle and Julius followed.

“I didn’t know the entirety of what happened until Geneva stormed Stonemare.” Noah took her hand and squeezed it.

Julius laughed. “I gave it to Isabelle for her twelfth birthday.”

Noah shook his head, touched in spite of the unfolding events.

Isabelle tugged at the delicate chain around her neck and displayed a large ruby encased in a gold filigree frame that resembled a wreath of leaves. “This is yours?” she directed to Geneva.

“No, my sweet,” Geneva told her. “It’s yours now. I’m thrilled Julius gave it to you.”

Docia, Sander, and Verda filtered in.

“Oh! Jewelry.” Docia hurried over. She held the locket on her flattened palm, then turned it this way and that. “It looks remarkably like one my mother used to have. She was buried with it…”

Geneva’s head tilted, her body stiffened. “Buried… How old were you?”

“Five or six. I don’t remember.” Docia’s gaze never left the piece, one finger tracing the intricately woven leaves. “It’s latched. Have you ever opened it?”

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